mr. nice guy

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Friday, July 29, 2005

salmonella be damned

mrs and baby nice guy have returned and all is right in the world. my mind is at ease. no longer do i feel compelled to carouse every night until 2 or 3, ingesting as many pisco sours as humanly possible, salmonella be damned. no longer am i obligated (for all the homies who can't) to be unshowered, uncleaned, unengaged, unevloved. with the return of my family, i am now allowed to be a functioning adult again. and, really, i welcome it more than i thought i would. being unsupervised can take its toll on a dude. and his liver. and his checkbook.

my wife returned to nice guy world headquarters on wednesday afternoon while i was at work. this turned out to be fortuitous because it gave her ample time to recover from the APOPLEPTIC RAGE that consumed her upon discovering that her lavender plant had mysteriously died. she loved that little plant.

we do not know the cause of death. poor plant. for some reason mrs nice guy places the blame squarely on the shoulders of her husband, whose duty it was to water the vegetation, all of which was still alive (except for the lavender), although admittedly looking a little worse for the wear. clearly the plants have a virus or an insect infestation or plant hepatitis or something.

so yeah, the lavender died. but the rest of the house was scrubbed, buffed, waxed, shined and licked clean, salmonella be damned. especially the fridge -- it was so clean that there was NOTHING in it. for some reason this did not impress mrs nice guy either. a dude can't win.

anyway, the baby, she is BIG. also she smiles all the time. and drools. she is a tiny toothless smiling, drooling goofy lunatic who looks like that really old lady i avoid on the bus; you know, the driver. the past two nights she has slept six hours in a ROW. this being a dad thing is great. we have rounded a corner i feel. i should send her away more often.

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

deadbeat daughter

so today mrs nice guy returns home with my child. as it happens today is our three-year weddin' anniversary. three years. a tenth of my life. well spent, i'd say. tomorrow the baby turns 11 weeks old. she was out of town for nearly two of those, say 1.75 weeks. do you realize what this means? i haven't seen my daughter for SIXTEEN PERCENT of her life. what kind of deadbeat daughter is she, anyway? does she think she's too good for me or something?i mean, that's a good chunk of time -- 16 percent of my life is almost five years. i hear that baby nice guy weighs a ton now, is smiling all the time, is more engaged with the world, and now has a full moustache. she's fluent in eleven languages. imagine! sixteen perecent of her life has been spent out of town, traveling. i won't even recognize her when i get home from work tonight. she is one sophisiticated little tyke. world weary. her dad is just some podunk backwoods tramp. no class. she doesn't need me anymore. we have grown so far apart.

Sunday, July 24, 2005

t-minus three days until Wife and Child return

so mrs nice guy has left the cape. instead of coming home to her doting husband, however, she has gone to vermont with her dutch mother and grandmother until WEDNESDAY. fine. i can take a hint. i don't need you around anyway. to be fair, she did send her dutch uncle and aunt and teenage cousins to manhattan for me to entertain for three days. so, i have that to thank her for.

honestly, the truth of the matter is that if the wife had come home today, here is what she would have found:

about three inches of dust coating everything. picture frames, lampshades, cats, underpants (which, come to think of it are dangling from one of the aformentioned lampshades). everything.

if i may quoth coleridge: bottles, bottles everywhere and not a drop to drink. (because, erm, it's all been drunk)

a fridge that looks like the interior of some horrible Area 51 alien dissection chamber.

the bed, she has not been made or changed in weeks. the white sheets have a charming lemon meringue hue to them. oddly, they taste like lemon meringue too. mmm, pie.

i believe the brooklyn board of health is on the verge of condemning the bathroom. please don't make me go in there.

it's been 90 degrees around here lately. the plants on our balcony need water every day. did you know that? i didn't. i thought the 100 percent humidity would take care of that. i was wrong.

i was petting one of the cats the other day until its total stillness made me recoil in terror at the realization that i had been cuddling with a hairball bigger than my head.

(note to self: delete traces of all websites visited this week.)

i did not totally neglect to clean everything around here: my guitar is bright and shiny, nice and polished, with a sparkling new set of strings on it.

she should be impressed that i have been reading the newspaper, front to back, every single day. she should not be annoyed that a week's worth of newspaper is strewn throughout the apartment.

why do laundry? when your wife earns more than you do, you can just buy new clothes when the old ones get dirty!

i alphabetized my cd's! again!

when wednesday rolls around, i am sure everything will suddenly look much better around here. it's not a matter of doing anything so drastic as tidying up, though, it's a matter of adjusting your standards a little. i think mrs nice guy can handle it.

Friday, July 22, 2005

hey lady, you got the love i need

here is a fact i picked up recently: creative genius expresses itself early in men but is turned off--almost like a tap--when a man gets married and has children. the dwindling energy of youth and the dampening effect of marriage essentially put the kibosh on brilliant work in not only science, but also music, painting, writing and, alas (no, make that double super secret alas), criminal activity. mr nice guy finds this all simultaneously depressing and yet also reassuring. let's start with the former.

this is depressing because:

my greatest work is apparently behind me. i don't even know what my greatest work was! growing my hair down to my ass in college? learning how to play the bitchin' intro to "over the hills and far away" on guitar? my third grade science fair entry, "making dirt from scratch," which was done entirely by my dad? no clue! i'll let you know what it was when i think of it, but since my IQ is apparently evaporating as i type, i'll consider myself lucky if i remember which subway i need to take to get home.

i am pretty sure that raising a child will be the single greatest riddle i have ever been confronted with and yet now--now! of all times!--is when my brain decides to call it quits. fucking brain!

this means my lovely bride is correct all those times she tells me i am acting "stupider than slingblade." alas again!

and yet still, i do manage to find solace in this news of my cognitive deterioration. to wit:

it's not my fault! whatever stupid thing i do, from now UNTIL THE END TIMES, i have been exonerated beforehand by this brilliant study. however badly i fare as a father, i can always cite this report. i can always take comfort in the fact that i was smarter before the child was born. it's like i was preordained to degenerate ... so why sweat it? wife! fetchez-moi another beer!

as such, the pressure's off! now i can concentrate, guilt-free, on parenting without wringing my hands over the fact that i still haven't written the great american power ballad novel. it's never going to happen now! how could it? i am stupider than i was as a bachelor. [2.5: in perhaps the first sign of mental atrophy, i see no contradiction in assuming that since i have given up on writing the great american power ballad novel--since the pressure has so gloriously been removed--the great american power ballad novel will practically write itself the next time i sit down to type a blog entry! bring on the groupies copy editors!]

ok, the truth? i secretly believe that this "marriage destroys creative genius" theory doesn't apply to me personally. indeed, my acuity will be as sharp as ever! fear my acuity! fear the sharp blade of its sharpness! but, here's the kicker: people who know i have recently become a father will foolishly assume i have gotten dumber, because that's what new parents do. they get dumb. so in fact i will be gaining a competitive edge! ha! mr nice guy wins again!

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

christ almighty. why do you even bother reading this worthless site anyway?

readers, you are dear to my heart. but i have been much, much too busy drinking working hard in the absence of my vacationing conscience family to blog. and, really, what is there to report? no adorable baby stories, that's for sure. i did eat with a friend at peter luger last night. why? BECAUSE I COULD. mmm, overpriced porterhouse. then i stayed out till 3:30. wasn't i supposed to be catching up on my sleep? what's wrong with me?

so. no babynews here. i am sure my child is doing impossibly cute things and there are many humorous adventures, misunderstandings, snafus and hijinks happening with the extended vacationing family. but you won't hear about any of it from me! i got nothin'. instead, here's a little housecleaning, a baby-themed link dump. enjoy!

first thing's first, somewhere in kentucky this week a FOURTEEN pound baby girl was born. seeing as how funny looking newborns are anyway, it's little wonder that they decided to name her "ed asner." the resemblance, i hear, is simply uncanny. i understand she has a lovely personality. strong bones. given the prodigiously prolific pooping output of my own puny daughter -- six pounds, 11 ounces at birth -- i can only say this. kentucky mom, you're going to want to learn how to make these. young ed asner will thank you for it.at least kentucky mom can take solace in the fact that her daughter is not an animal-human hybrid ... OR IS SHE? scientists are dabbling in the unspeakable. they now dare to tread the terrain formerly reserved for God himself. they speak the language of love that dare not speak its own language: man. animal. hybrids. chimeras. manimals. sweet. is baby ed asner one of them?

people, do not fear the coming of the super-breed of hybrid humans. after all, when you think of it, we are all manimals at the end of the day, are we not? mrs nice guy is as much lusty lynx as she is proud lioness. i offer, humbly, as an example, yours truly. how is mr nice guy like a chimera? let him count the ways:

like a jungle cat, he pounces upon his adversaries, tearing at their exposed underbellies with his jagged claws, purring as he feasts on lesser beasts

like a mouse, he is quiet and swift, passing unobserved through your home as you slumber. also, he likes cheese.

like the dolphin, he is smarter than most humans, has his own secret language and is occasionally found in cans of tuna.

but mostly he is like the rabbit, that lusty mammalian procreator par excellence, heralded far and wide for the rich bounty harvested from his widely spread seed.

so, baby ed asner, wellcome, all 14 monstrous pounds of you, to the world. maybe you are a hybrid. that's ok. we love you anyway. unless, wait a second ... unless her dad was this guy. gracious me. the horror!

Monday, July 18, 2005

a mistress most welcome

so my darling bride up and took our tiny baby away. they are gone. the two of them joined mrs nice guy's dutch mother in cape cod, where they will be for over a week, doing lord knows what. eating lobster rolls and having clam bakes and saying "wicked" a lot, probably. i, sadly, could not join them. i was invited, mind you. the entire dutch side of the family is coming over from dutchland: mother-in-law will be joined by her mother, brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew. they all get together every summer, usually in europe, and have elaborate vacations that involve lots of wine and arguments. this year, however, everyone has come to the States to meet the baby, the latest in nice guy technology. i am unable to join them because i will be taking four months leave beginning august and my boss probably wouldn't have looked too, too kindly on me taking a week off before that happened.

so, basically, i am home alone for 11 days, bereft of wife and child. i can't believe how much i miss them. i can't go a whole hour without wondering what they're doing. ah, hell. readers, i can't keep lying to you ...

life

is

sweet.

ladies and gentlemen, do you know what a glorious thing it is to sleep for more than three consecutive hours? DO YOU KNOW HOW GOOD THE CHILDLESS AMONG YOU HAVE IT? you have it pretty good, i will say that. mrs nice guy calls me once or twice a day and, absolutely, it's genuinely lovely to hear her mellifluous voice. but, oh, man, the sleep. The Sleep! she is the most irresistible seductress. i love her. more than anything. ANYTHING. where has she been?

so, yeah. i am sleeping. also. just for the record, my alcohol consumption seems to have spiked by four thousand percent. my liver sent me an email today that said: "hey, maybe you should consider joining your wife on the cape." i marked it as spam. stupid liver.

i will not bore you with details, but saturday night--which was, as it happens, the night they left town--i managed to stay out until four a.m. (i seem to recall my friends throwing donuts at my house before i went to glorious sleep.) sunday night i had dinner and drinks with a colleague of my wife's who i suspect is a spy, but i tolerate her anyway because she is worse at billiards than i. this morning i caught the 11 a.m. showing of wedding crashers. that's right: a movie! i haven't seen a movie in an actual theater in like six months! then i spent the day doing NOTHING. i didn't change a single diaper. i didn't beg a single infant to stop screaming long enough to let me go to the bathroom. not once! now i am going to go to bed EARLY and i am going to sleep for TWELVE HOURS. AND YOU CAN'T STOP ME.

wife, when you read this, i apologize. i miss you. i know you think i am entertaining ten hookers a minute. but, honestly, i am too tired for that. truly. it will be wonderful to see you again. you should know that, even if i haven't vacuumed or fed the cats in nearly two weeks, i look at pictures of our baby every night before i turn in. i do miss you, i swear. i love feeling your presence, that heft of home, beside me in our bed. but sleep, she has not visited the bed for longer. and she is a mistress most welcome.

Friday, July 15, 2005

doing shots

as i mentioned earlier we took the kid, our tiny little pincushion, to get her shots on wednesday. i left work early to be at the doctor's office mid-day and enjoy the privilege of watching our supremely excellent pediatrician stick not one, not two, not three but FOUR needles into our baby girl's pudgy little thighs. (seriously, could they not just mix all the shots into one hypodermic needle? don't they get all mixed together in her bloodstream anyway?) well, it went largely as expected. our supremely excellent pediatrician had me hold the baby as mrs nice guy made eye contact with her and cooed in an effort to distract.

ha! this child will have you know that she is not so easily fooled.

it all went down a little something like this: mr nice guy, tall and handsome, holds his baby upright in his very strong arms. mrs nice guy leans over and holds her baby's hands, looks into her child's limpid eyes and softly murmurs to her. the supremely excellent pediatrician whips out an eight foot long needle. mrs nice guy whimpers a little. the baby burbles and grins. into the baby's innocent soft legs the supremely excellent pediatrician jabs this massive jagged blade, which glides through flesh much like an olympic diver effortlessly plunging into a warm pool.

the baby stops wiggling. she stops smiling. she momentarily stops breathing. her eyes get real wide real quick. her mouth stretches open -- wider than we have ever seen it get before. then: nothing. time stands still. it takes a good ten seconds before any sound comes out of her. and then ...

ladies and gentlemen, my baby has reinvented the scream. she has recreated the howl, rebranding it for her generation. we are all very impressed at what this little girl can do with her lungs. little does she know, she has three more of these bastard shots to go.

in the microsecond between the moment she manages to draw another breath and before she begins wailing again, the supremely excellent pediatrician manages to slide another pornographically long needle into the same leg. the baby's eyes flashed a look of bewilderment around the room. she said "WAUAUGHAGUGH AGHGUSGG GGGJJJKA KSUSAUAAAA AAAA," which i have loosely translated to mean: AGAIN? ARE YOU PEOPLE FUCKING JOKING? but wait, there's more. the pediatrician scooted over to the kid's other thigh, you know, the unmolested one, the leg that had not yet been stabbed and pumped full of poison. then she stabbed it and pumped it full of poison. twice. friends, i feel it only fair to tell you this: my baby, she OWNS screaming. screaming is hers. every time anyone ever screams again ever, they will owe her royalties. it's just a fact. she has reinvented the scream for all time. our supremely excellent pediatrician said this to us: "this is a sensitive baby." my child retorted thusly: EXCUSE ME BUT I JUST HAD FOUR NEEDLES LONGER THAN MY ARM STUCK THROUGH MY TENDER THIGHS AND I FEEL PERFECTLY ENTITLED TO CORDIALLY INVITE YOU TO EAT MY DIAPER, INTO WHICH I HAVE JUST UNLOADED EIGHT POUNDS OF FRESH STEAMING TURD. YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT I'M SENSITIVE.anway. mrs nice guy nursed our poor abused child, who promptly passed the fuck right out. good night. later that evening, after the baby woke up for dinner, she was groggy and she was pissed off and she was mildly feverish. she was in No Mood. finally, after a couple of hours, we got her to go to sleep at around 8:30. from that moment on, she slept. and slept. and slept. then she slept a little more for good measure. people, i am telling you, this glorious baby slept until 3:30 in the a.m. SEVEN HOURS OF SLEEP. the problem with this, of course, is that we were thoroughly unable to enjoy it: mrs nice guy couldn't sleep because she needed to nurse. by midnight we were pretty sure the baby was dead. by two in the morning i was thinking to myself: "great, not only is my child dead, but my wife's tits are about to explode." it gets better. when the baby finally did wake up, she was SOAKED because the person who last changed her diaper (and there is no photographic evidence that it was her father) fastened it too low and--seeing as how she slept for seven sweet, sweet hours--she must have urinated eleven times, overflowing her diaper and her absorbant little onesie. so, basically, my daughter had turned into a tiny pissponge. the poor thing. denied dignity for the umpteenth time in just one day. anyway, we were relieved that she was alive. and well. albeit soaked in her own urine. and, man, the shots, they were miserable. but did you read that part about the seven solid hours of sleep? you know what this means, right? the wife and i must schedule shots EVERY DAY UNTIL SHE TURNS 18.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

will someone please rescue this child?

instead of a very VERY bad week, the child is scheduled to have merely a very bad week. we took her in to the laser dude on monday who took one look at her nose, which, since her first treatment, has become cracked and scabbed and bloodied, and said "i am not going to laser her nose today" and the tiny child, who was lying on the deadly laser death table of death, grinned because the universe breathed a sigh of relief, the sigh of a temporary stay of execution.

(this of course happened only a mere several minutes after the scab on her nose was accidentally ripped open by yours truly. we took the tiny monster to mrs nice guy's office for a public viewing on the way to the laser doctor's office. everyone made appropriate comments about how she is the CUTEST BABY OF ALL TIME EVER, even though she screams a lot and never sleeps. as we were leaving mrs nice guy's office, i cradled the baby against my chest, in the koala pose she so enjoys. she has this new trick where, in an attempt to gain motor control and master the niceties of self-piloting, she rears her head back as if to say "look ma, i have a neck and i'm not afraid to use it!" and then her head usually floomps forward in ignominious defeat. it's funny to watch someone fight with her own body. well, on the way out of the office she reared her head back -- "look, pa, i have motor cotro ... oops" -- and then slammed her head against my chest. she screamed. i thought she was just startled but when i lifted her up, i saw that her barely healed nose was BLEEDING onto her lip. i experienced the worst feeling of my life since the time i buckled her fatty thigh into her swing, you know, last week -- that was the previous worst feeling of my life, and that was just a bruise. i have now become baby-bloodying scum. mrs nice guy snatched her daughter out of my arms and shot sharp jagged daggers of hate from her eyes directly into my testicles. she may never let me have sex again.)

so the laser reprieve was welcomed by one and all.

now the bad news: today she is getting her shots. i understand the rabies inoculation is particularly painful. we are not looking forward to this.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

bringing up baby badly

it's been a wee while since we took a stroll down Bad Advice Avenue, hasn't it? well, lucky for you this new book recently crossed my desk. How to Survive Your Baby's First Year. the premise: the book's editors surveyed a bunch of parents about parenting secrets and techniques that work for them. basically, it's a bunch of tips from strangers.

first of all, this has to be the cheapest, laziest way to write a book. no work was involved. just ask people with kids for a few tricks of the trade, don't pay them anything, and collect the profits from desperate sleep-deprived suckers so hard up for peace and quiet they would probably take parenting advice from this guy. i mean, honestly, taking seriously a book of this caliber is akin to leaving your baby in the care of BTK. ok, not really, but you get my drift.and with that, let the bad advice begin!

Develop a private ritual with your child -- something the two of you share that nobody else (including your spouse) does. hmm, yes. this is also known as the Michael Jackson school of parenting. there is a reason this advice was given by an "Anonymous" parent of one three-year-old girl.

When your baby cries, rather than getting frustrated, join the chorus. of course! nothing says "effective parenting" like sobbing uncontrollably every time your child cries.

Get a sales job so that you can work from home! great idea, because i don't have a job already! and i've always wanted to work from home, disrupting strangers and selling them garbage like this advice. how much do you charge and may i have another?

Don't get rid of your hip clothes once you stop fitting into them. They will serve as reminders of your hipness. because a person who uses the word "hip" in every sentence to describe herself is definitely filled to the rim with it. also, let me get this straight: keep clothes that don't fit as a reminder of what i used to wear? does this make sense to anyone? i live in new york, you know. how much closet space do you think i have, lady?

I found myself really looking forward to my daughter falling asleep. I would panic when she was awake. someone please put a preemptive call in to child welfare services. this lady is happiest as a parent when her child is unconscious.

Use the Supreme Court Test [when naming baby]: Does this sound like the name of someone who might serve on the Supreme Court? very topical advice, but give me a break. let's take a hard look at some of my all-time favorite supreme court justice names, shall we? Bushrod Washington (1762-1829), Brockholst Livingston (1757-1823), Mahlon Pitney (1858-1924), Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965) and, let's face it, Antonin Scalia (b. 1936). i mean, really. does "bushrod" scream "supreme court" to you? frankly, i think it would be awesome to have a Chief Justice Brittanie Dakota.

Seek out advice from people you respect. you know, like people you've never met who happen to be quoted in this book.

there are many, many more tantalizing tidbits. but i will leave you with this one last, my favorite. oh, how i love the inspired absurd insanity of this pointer:

Wait on your wife hand and foot ... Then during that hour the baby is asleep, ask her to service you. A hand job is a wonderful thing when you haven't had sex for a month. better yet, how about this? "honey, i know you're tired and your crotch was ripped open six weeks ago, but hey, your mouth still works, right?" i understand this is what john wayne bobbitt said to lorena moments before the Very Bad Thing happened.

Thursday, July 07, 2005

why i hate myself today

first of all, the baby is officially 8 weeks old today. she should thank us for letting her live this long. man, this kid can cry. she cries all damn day. ALL. DAMN. DAY. mrs nice guy calls me at work at least twice a day to say: "she's still crying. she hasn't slept for more than 15 minutes. i hate her." i make sympathetic noises over the phone. then i hang up and praise allah that i am miles away.

we are all tired and a little cranky. which means it might--JUST MIGHT--not have been a total mistake when i injured my daughter this morning. i swear i didn't do it intentionally, but subconsciously? who knows.

as i was getting ready for work, the baby was doing her thing, perfecting her already impressive crying skills (see paragraph one). i cuddled her, i cooed to her, i put her in her little bouncy chair. she wasn't wholly satisfied with the way things were going, which she indicated by ratcheting up her cries by eighteen decibels. so i decided to put her in her swing. her swing always calms her down. the thing is baby crack. it's great: chills baby out so you can actually do something that doesn't involve selling your soul to make her stop screaming. we love the neglect-o-matic.

so i plopped her in the swing. she looked up at me and grinned. my heart melted a little. i tickled her and i forgave her for all the evil she has brought into the world. and then i buckled her in. snap! i buckled the left buckle. snap! i buckled the right buckle. hmm, there was a little resistance there.

i didn't just ... is it possible that i ... did her thigh get pinched in the buckle? oh sweet tiny infant jesus, weeping on the cross.

her grin instantly disappeared from her face. about ten million synapses fired in half a second as her face went from blank confusion to searing pain and indignant rage, indicating that i had indeed pinched her chubby thigh with the buckle. she actually spoke these words: SO HELP ME GOD I AM GOING TO FUCKING SUE YOUR SCRWANY WHITE ASS SO THOROUGHLY THAT YOUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL BE FOREVER IMPOVERISHED! (she's still so little that she didn't realize that she was talking about her own children. how cute.)

then she cried her real tears again. christ i fucking loathe myself. mrs nice guy scooped her up and cuddled her, pet her, kissed her. she inspected the thigh -- lo and behold there was a little purple bruise already. i cannot begin to explain the hot heat of fiery rage the flared in my wife's eyes when she looked at me again. she said no words, but the meaning of her glare said "you are already dead, you just don't know it."

Tuesday, July 05, 2005

milk duds

fireworks? giant daisies? purple air-titties? we report, you decide.

i would have wished you a happy fourth, y'all, but mr nice guy's independence has reached record lows these past seven-odd weeks so he frankly just didn't see what all the fireworks were about. (neither, frankly, did the baby, who we brought up to our roof-with-a-view for her first Fourth. just as the festivities got boomingly under way, she fell asleep. dumb baby.)but the sky wasn't the only place for fireworks this past weekend. it seems there was no small about of burning, popping, fizzing and explodingness inside mrs nice guy's right breasticle. that's right: all this sporadic nursing and no sleeping has resulted in one excruciating case of Poison Boob. mastitis, she is a cruel mistress. mrs nice guy went to bed on sunday not feeling well. halfway through the night she was burning up and sweating through the sheets, generally something i do not condone her doing without my assistance. she found a lump. it hurt her to nurse. good lord, do the satanic gods of parenting ever chill the fuck out?anyway. it's probably just a backlogged milk duct. she felt a little better the next day. popped an advil. drank lots of water; pumped, expressed and hot-compressed. she got the midwife to prescribe some antibiotics -- but reserved those as a nuclear option, if things get worse. thank goodness the fever is gone today, but there is still some pain apparently. she is nursing frequently, and as all the experts advise, in "different positions." i walked into the room once to find mrs nice guy on her back with the baby face down at the boob and her tiny legs up in mom's face. i also witnessed some bizarre yoga-style downward dog feeding contortion that i am not entirely convinced is legal in this state. oh man, i only wish i could post pictures of that, but this is not that kind of website. instead, you'll have to settle for this july four themed metaphorical abstract rendering of Poison Boob:

Friday, July 01, 2005

giant baby eats new york, news at 11

so i forgot to mention that we learned something rather alarming about our little bozo-the-red-nosed-daughter the other day. when we were at the babyvet's, getting her nose electrocuted, i asked if they wouldn't mind weighing her, just out of curiosity. you see, i have noticed lately that--while holding her and weeping silently as she refuses to sleep--my puny arm muscles ache with a soreness as if i had been pumping serious iron all day. why should a widdle biddle baby put such a hurt on my biceps?

i'll tell you why: she clocked in at 11.4 pounds! good lord! what has mrs nice guy been pumping out of her bionic mammaries?

you may recall that at birth, seven weeks ago, she weighed 6 pounds and change. do you realize what this means? in seven weeks she has nearly doubled in weight!

this is a very dangerous fact. can you imagine what you would look like if you doubled in weight every seven weeks? why, at this rate, kidzilla will weigh 23 pounds at 14 weeks -- 46 pounds at 21 weeks!

ladies and gentlemen, according to my calculations, by the time she reaches the end of her first year, she will weigh more than 800 pounds! why, her nose alone will weigh more than what a child her age should weigh.